Thursday Open Thread

Neil Peart’s — drummer of Rush — amazing travelogue/memoir of a motorcycle ride around North and Central America after losing his wife and daughter (in 1997/98 in separate incidents — car wreck and cancer)

They can say what they want, it doesn’t mean you have to lower your flag even if you live there. Yeah, I agree it’s too much but he is after all a politician.

A bigger travesty IMO is the naming of a USN ship the USS Giffords and even worse the USS Murtha which was done recently…so pick and choose your battles if you try and fight everything you’ll win nothing and just come off as a bitter complainer.

No excuses, period. In the way of offering more knowledge, ethanol subsidies have driven up feed prices to Ass-tronomical levels, quadrupling in about a dozen years now. If gas prices had quadrupled in the same period, we would paying about $ 7 a gallon now. It is not possible to feed animals with these bulk feeds and make in any money. My farm loses money every year, but I, currently, have 30 foraging meat sources as insurance against the end of civilization as we know it. When the supermarket closes, I will still be eating. And you can see in the goat science post below, they are cute.

Horse feed has been going up, but if you can’t afford it, get rid of the horses one way or the other. Worst case scenario, they’re better off not suffering. Best case scenario, find someone who will take care of them. Animal cruelty is never cool.

That’s why I said first, no excuses period. And the price of hay in that same period has not even doubled, so double the no excuses. If one falls on hard times and can’t feed nor sell nor otherwise dispose of one’s livestock, there should be no doubt about how to relieve the animals suffering. It’s a damn shame, to do that, but it’s a far cry from the criminal stupidity of starving good and faithful servants.

To jump on a tangent, lottery winners are a great microcosm of the pros and cons of “spreading the wealth.” The majority of folks of meager means who win a lottery windfall end up squandering it. The majority of folks with a good fiscal balance sheet who win a lottery windfall end up utilizing it for decades.

A certain percentage of the population simply have badluck, expensive health issues, etc., but there are a lot of people who are poor because they do not know how to acquire and retain wealth. If you give the latter group millions of dollars they will demonstrate their ineptitude.

I’m not normally a fan of conspiracy but Dick Morris was saying something interesting on Fox. Suggesting George Stephanopoulos is a ‘Paid Democratic Hitman’, in relation to the recent contraception debacle by Obama.

If anyone watched the January debate in NH, it was extremely puzzling why Stephanopoulos spent such an inordinate amount of time talking about if the candidates thought states could ban contraception. Even the candidates seemed confused and I cannot remember who but one of them eventually confronted George as to why they were wasting their time talking about it.

Now, if you of the conspiracy minded, it might make more sense. In that Stephanopoulos was setting down the primer to gauge Obama’s potential opponents on how to attack them, knowing this “rule” was coming soon. Likely? Not really no but it definitely raised my eyebrow.

I don’t like Morris. His “ideals” seem to be on sale to the highest bidder, but I did see that debate and the question was very bizarre. It’s a shame none of the candidates was quick enough on his or her feet to simply state, “There is no pending legislation involving this topic at all, nor is it reasonable to assume any legislation on this subject would come up on my term. On the very remote chance something like this did cross my desk I’d veto it on the basis that it has nothing to do with the enumerated powers and is, therefore, outside of the purview of the federal legislature.”

I do agree that with hindsight Stephanopoulis’ motives are worth questioning.

I obviously respect Morris for being someone who got his head removed from his behind when it comes to politics — and I’d love to be wrong here — but if I’ve learned one thing from watching him on Fox for the last few years, his predictions are to be trusted about as much as Threedonia’s resident military wife bully’s.

I don’t think Morris got his head out of his arse. I think he has a vendetta against Hillary Clinton so the enemy of his enemy became his friend. My guess is, if MSNBC came courting with more money than Roger Ailes Morris would be on Ed Schult’z show tomorrow championing the other team.

Interesting. I read about it at the Thorium Energy Alliance site. 1/2 cent of Thorium fuels one Americn’s life. That’s pretty impressive. So is the fact that Thorium is an abundant source, and easily found. Here’s the catch, as I see it: When “they” were beating the drum for nuclear power, a few decades back, one of the catchphrases that stuck was that a nuclear power plant would generate power “too cheap to meter.” Then, the Marxists became involved, alarmed that cheap or free energy would add fuel to the capitalistic fire, which in turn, would make the dying embers of their centrally controlled economy look even worse.